Customized items, such as customized apparel and equipment, can provide significant benefits when undertaking a wide variety of activities. For example, customized items can help people adapt to different environmental conditions. For some activities, customized items can contribute to, and even enhance, performance. For example, customizing the size of a sporting item to an individual user, e.g. to the specific size, weight or body measurements of an athlete, results in a sporting item that has an optimal fit for this particular athlete, thereby leading to an improved usability during a sports activity and hence to improved performance of the athlete. Such items can be highly valued, so that item creators can invest significant resources in the design, manufacture and distribution of the items, and item users can invest significant resources in the item selection and acquisition process. However, conventional creation and acquisition processes for customized items have shortcomings.
Some conventional item design and/or manufacturing processes fail to provide for sufficient customization options such as unique customization. For example, graphical customization can have a performance aspect with respect to some activities, and/or aid item identification. Where customization has a motivational aspect, insufficient customization options can be detrimental with respect to the motivational aspect. Where customization has a performance aspect, insufficient customization options can be detrimental with respect to the performance aspect. For example, some conventional item manufacturing processes are designed to produce items having a relatively small set of standardized sizes, shapes and/or performance properties. When the best fit for an item user is not one of this set, the item user can experience discomfort and/or a performance detriment. Some conventional item manufacturing processes produce a larger set of sizes, shapes and/or performance properties. However, as the number of options increases, it can become problematic to determine an optimal selection and/or customization for a particular item user.